Jessica Henninger aims to shield her kids from the political environment that temporarily shut down their school library at Fort Campbell and resulted in certain books being taken off the shelves.
There’s a delicate balance between making sure your kids understand what’s happening in the world around them and not overwhelming them with grown-up issues,” Henninger stated. “However, when (Black History Month) initiatives get cancelled after you’ve finished working on them… they pick up on these changes.
Referencing her spouse’s military dedication and both of their shared commitment to the U.S. Constitution, Henninger has
joined a federal lawsuit
On behalf of her children, she cited First Amendment concerns and requested the courts to halt President Donald Trump’s anti-DEI executive orders at schools under his jurisdiction.
Defense Department Education Activity
The Department of Defense Education Activity (DODEA) includes Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth as one of the defendants.
Challenges have been raised against book removals at Fort Campbell and other educational institutions operated by the Defense Department, with claims of unconstitutionality.
Henninger has five offspring: two have completed their education at DODEA schools, while three others remain as students. These three were mentioned in the legal complaint submitted by the American Civil Liberties Union on Tuesday. The lawsuit contests certain policies set forth by the U.S. Department of Defense that resulted in this situation.
schools at Fort Campbell and other military bases removing books about slavery and civil rights
.
Henninger, whose husband is in the military and is stationed at Fort Campbell, has lived in Kentucky since October.
Prior to this, throughout all their journeys, “I don’t remember a moment during our years with DODEA when my children’s studies were influenced by what was happening in the White House,” Henninger said to a handful of journalists via Zoom on Wednesday.
“We owe our children to be honest,” she said. “I’m very fearful that these actions (are) trying to take away my children’s opportunities to learn about integral parts of our history, our American history … and different cultures. That’s what makes education — and life — rich. It’s all of those differences. My younger children … they deserve the right to learn about that stuff.”
The legal case: ‘Banning books should not happen’
Through an executive order, Trump instructed schools that receive federal funds to
not teach “ideology
This approach views people as part of favored or disadvantaged groups instead of treating them as individuals.” He further mentioned this point;
Military Branches to Disband Diversity Offices
and directed all federal agencies to
recognize only cisgender male and female identities
.
In February,
Clarksville Now,
a news outlet in Clarksville, Tennessee, reported Fort Campbell librarians were busy “scrubbing for books that contain references to slavery, the civil rights movement and anything else related to diversity, equity and inclusion” in compliance with Trump’s orders.
Fort Campbell is an Army base that spans the Kentucky-Tennessee border between Hopkinsville and Clarksville.
Fort Campbell schools also had to remove “bulletin boards that reference Black History Month and Black leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr., Harriet Tubman and Rosa Parks,” according to Clarksville Now.
Corey Shapiro, the legal director for the ACLU of Kentucky, expressed hope on Wednesday for a preliminary injunction to “obtain quicker judicial relief.”
“We’re still determining precisely when the subsequent actions will take place and developing that plan,” he stated.
He additionally aims for greater openness regarding which books get taken off the shelves and what happens to them afterward.
However, he declared: “None of these books should be removed.”
To a certain degree, it isn’t truly important whether we maintain a list or participate in a discussion about which specific book is suitable,” Shapiro stated. “The core problem is that books shouldn’t be removed from school libraries. Children ought to have the chance to freely access every single book in their school’s collection, without worrying that someone within the Department of Defense might decide otherwise due to an executive order prohibiting particular perspectives.
‘I could not abide’
Shortly after the executive orders were issued, Henninger began receiving emails from the children’s teachers, which essentially led him to believe that some developments were taking place.
She got “notifications that assignments were being canceled, then that the library just unexpectedly closed down.”
She immediately started investigating, contacted the ACLU to help and ultimately joined the multi-state federal lawsuit in an attempt to block the Trump administration from carrying out the anti-DEI orders.
“I have a very strong belief that children should have access to books,” said Henninger, who is herself a “voracious reader.”
“When I was a child, I read. That’s how I learned about the world around me. It’s how I learned about other people and life experiences outside of my own,” she said. “And I feel like that is an important part of being able to understand other people. And to have those options taken away from my children was something that I have never experienced before.”
All her children, too, love books, she said.
“We’ve never had an administration come in and interfere in this way with our children’s education,” she said. “My husband fights for our constitutional rights and our freedoms in this country, and to see those rights being taken away from my children was just absolutely something that I could not abide.”
After the lawsuit was filed, Michael O’Day, a spokesperson for the Department of Defense Education Activity, said he couldn’t comment on an active lawsuit but offered praise for the agency’s “dedication to providing an exceptional educational experience for every student.” More than 67,000 students worldwide are enrolled in schools run by the DODEA.
“Our curriculum, rigorously aligned with DoDEA’s proven standards, has earned us the distinction of being the top-ranked school system in the United States for four consecutive years, based on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), the
Nation’s Report Card
,” O’Day said in a statement. “These standards promote academic excellence, critical thinking, and a learning environment that empowers all military-connected students to excel.”
Henninger attributes the success in part to the diversity of the student body.
“I think part of this strength is our diversity — the diversity of people that come together and we learn from each other, and that’s part of our strength,” she said. “And so to see that potentially being taken away from my younger children? That’s harmful.”
She believes the executive orders are politically motivated and cited the Trump administration’s deportations of immigrants, saying his presidential campaign was “propped on” immigration issues.
“And then when you see them coming into the libraries and removing those items … common sense would dictate that two plus two equals four. That’s definitely politically motivated,” she said.
‘We can’t whitewash’ history
For military families like Henninger’s, DODEA schools are often the only option, though that can vary based on where a soldier is stationed. Private education is expensive. Henninger’s best path was to fight back within the DODEA system, she said.
Other plaintiffs represented by the ACLU are enrolled in Defense Department schools in Virginia, Italy and Japan.
“We don’t have a lot of the same recourses that that families have in the public education system. We can’t just go to our school board and and say, ‘This is unacceptable.’ We very much have to worry about retaliation and retribution. And so there’s a lot of stress and anxiety around that for a lot of people, which is understandable,” Henninger said.
She and her husband talked about the risks of joining such a lawsuit and ultimately decided she had to.
What ultimately mattered to my husband was: ‘I enlisted in the military to protect the Constitution, so if I cannot safeguard my children’s constitutional rights, what is the point of me being a solider?’
Her children “possess their First Amendment rights just like everyone else. It isn’t fair for them to be deprived of these rights simply because their father serves as a soldier; they should have the same privileges as anyone else.”
She desires for her kids to understand the complete history of their nation, encompassing the “less admirable aspects” such as the Trail of Tears, slavery, and the struggle for civil rights.
It is our genuine past,” she stated. “We cannot erase that.
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